Friday, August 29, 2008

Bringing up Columbine?

"We are nine years removed from the mass murder-suicide that happened here, and 10 miles south of a national political gathering at which the quieting of America's guns has never been mentioned." Well, it might be due to the facts, or due to common sense, but it's more likely due to the knowledge that it would be political suicide. I went to a high school that had a parking lot full of pickups with rifles in them, and a school shooting was never a threat. Studies have shown that the areas with fewer gun restrictions have less crime, too.

"No one halts me as I enter the spotless, suburban, painfully infamous campus; no apparatus scans me for a pistol or a knife. There are cameras in the ceiling, but at the Home of the Rebels, a faith in human goodness -- and the odds against a second strike of fateful lightning -- is the shell that keeps a thousand children safe." Well, the cameras and whatnot will allow them to monitor a situation. And it's not like they'd equip someone to stop a threat, so it's hard to figure that scanning people would help.

The article goes on to talk about the drug-addled racists they conveniently caught with guns. Everything added up too conveniently in that case...and the guns were traditional hunting rifles. It seems to me like a segway for suggesting a ban on "high-power sniper rifles." I might seem a bit paranoid, but it all seemed a bit too convenient. Political statements by drug addicts, hunting rifles, and the attempt to pretend it was a plot...it just seems like too many things were going just right for the Dems.

"'If we would have had metal detectors, they would have just killed the people running them,' the witness said." And you figure they'd stop there? Of course not. And I'm certain that the quoted individual doesn't believe they would either. Arming people would allow for defense. An armed victim is much harder to victimize. Arm teachers, and there will be someone fully prepared to resist.

"'What could have prevented Klebold and Harris from committing those murders on that particular day?' I didn't really have a good answer. The guns that they used were bought legally. An 18-year-old student went to a gun show in Colorado Springs and bought these weapons and gave them to Klebold and Harris. " The guns were purchased legally by someone who illegally transferred them to those who wanted to kill others. You aren't going to keep criminals from finding, buying, or making weapons. But, had teachers been allowed to bring guns in, they might have stopped the murderers.

The article then talks about mindset and copycats. The unimaginable creatures that would perpetrate such crimes are said to do it to achieve a sort of immortality.

Then, we're suddenly back to the politicians' near-silence on guns. "So there is no looking to the candidates to end the carnage." It's not the fault of an inanimate object. it's the fault of the subhuman creatures that perpetrate the violence and the creatures in power who refuse to allow people to defend themselves.

"'I would like to think that if we had tougher laws there would be less murders and violent crimes,' Frank DeAngelis said. 'But the criminals would still find ways to get guns anyway. What Klebold and Harris had in their basement was unreal. They could have engaged with the police for four hours that day.'" Sorry, Frank, but I don't follow. If you know that criminals will be criminals, why would you like to think that gun control would work? It won't, and it will disarm those who would be able to defend themselves against the criminals.

We then hear that Columbine's principal endorses Obama, and that the nearest gun shop is anti-Obama. The owner points out that he wouldn't be at fault if a gun he sold were used in a crime. Also, we're led to believe that the meth addicts' guns could make good assassination weapons, and we're told that a .22 is a "powerful" "varmint gun." Of course, the big quote that we're supposed to remember is a defensive one, which leads me to believe the author made the gun shop owner angry. I take from this that we're supposed to see him as an angry, horrible person. If I had a reporter asking pointed questions that implied that I was a criminal, I'd get a bit testy, too.

"'It's safe here,' their principal tells them. In a land of rage and rifles, that may be the most hopeful audacity of all." Again, we're told that anger and rifles go hand-in-hand, and we are supposed to believe that safety is impossible to achieve when the citizenry is armed. In reality, a disarmed citizenry is a defenseless citizenry.

It's funny how the interviews are supposed to lend credibility to the article, but the only one advocating gun control is the author. Also, there is not one ounce of reasoning to the call for disarmament. The entire article is supposed to play to our emotions, and there isn't even a rationale given for the proposed course of action. It's a little telling when you propose action without reason. Logic is the tool with which we can determine the utility of a course of action. When you ignore it, you do so at your peril.